Driven outside Judea, divine grace in Samaria

And now (John 4) Jesus, being driven away by the jealousy of the
Jews, begins His ministry outside that people, while still
acknowledging their true position in the dealings of God. He goes
away into Galilee; but His road led Him by Samaria, in which dwelt
a mingled race of strangers and of Israel -- a race who had
forsaken the idolatry of the strangers, but who, while following
the law of Moses and calling themselves by the name of Jacob, had
set up a worship of their own at Gerizim. Jesus does not enter the
town. Being weary He sits down outside the town on the brink of the
well -- for He must needs go that way; but this necessity was an
occasion for the acting of that divine grace which was in the
fulness of His Person, and which overflowed the narrow limits of
Judaism.

Baptism by Jesus' disciples

There are some preliminary details to remark before entering on
the subject of this chapter. Jesus did not Himself baptise, for He
knew the whole extent of the counsels of God in grace, the true
object of His coming. He could not bind souls by baptism to a
living Christ. The disciples were right in so doing. They had so
to receive Christ. It was faith on their part.

At Jacob's well in Samaria

When rejected by the Jews, the Lord does not contend. He leaves
them; and, coming to Sychar, He found Himself in the most
interesting associations as regards the history of Israel, but in
Samaria: sad testimony of Israel's ruin. Jacob's well was in the
hands of people who called themselves of Israel, but the greater
part of whom were not so, and who worshipped they knew not what,
although pretending to be of the stock of Israel. Those who were
really Jews had driven away the Messiah by their jealousy. He -- a
man despised by the people -- had gone away from among them. We see
Him sharing the sufferings of humanity, and, weary with His
journey, finding only the side of a well on which to rest at
noon. He contents Himself with it. He seeks nothing but the will of
His God: it brought Him thither. The disciples were away; and God
brought thither at that unusual hour a woman by herself. It was
not the hour at which women went out to draw water; but, in the
ordering of God, a poor sinful woman and the Judge of quick and
dead thus met together.

The heart of the Saviour: the gift of living water

The Lord, weary and thirsty, had no means even to quench His
thirst. He is dependent as man, on this poor woman to have a
little water for His thirst. He asks it of her. The woman, seeing
that He is a Jew, is surprised; and now the divine scene unfolds
itself, in which the heart of the Saviour, rejected by men and
oppressed by the unbelief of His people, opens to let that fulness
of grace flow out which finds its occasion in the necessities and
not in the righteousness of men. Now this grace did not limit
itself to the rights of Israel, nor lend itself to national
jealousy. It was a question of the gift of God, of God Himself who
was there in grace, and of God come down so low, that, being born
among His people, He was dependent, as to His human position, on a
Samaritan woman for a drop of water to quench His thirst. "If thou
knewest the gift of God, and [not, who I am, but] who it is that
saith unto thee, Give me to drink"; that is to say, If thou hadst
known that God gives freely, and the glory of His Person who was
there, and how deeply He had humbled Himself, His love would have
been revealed to thy heart, and would have filled it with perfect
confidence, in regard even to the wants which a grace like this
would have awakened in thy heart. "Thou wouldest have asked," said
the divine Saviour, "and he would have given thee" the living water
that springeth up into everlasting life. Such is the heavenly fruit
of the mission of Christ, wherever He is received.* His heart lays
it open (it was revealing Himself), pours it out into the heart of
one who was its object; consoling itself for the unbelief of the
Jews (rejecting the end of promise) by presenting the true
consolation of grace to the misery that needed it. This is the true
comfort of love, which is pained when unable to act. The floodgates
of grace are lifted up by the misery which that grace waters. He
makes manifest that which God is in grace; and the God of grace was
there. Alas! the heart of man, withered up and selfish, and
pre-occupied with its own miseries (the fruits of sin), cannot at
all understand this. The woman sees something extraordinary in
Jesus; she is curious to know what it means -- is struck with His
manner, so that she has a measure of faith in His words; but her
desires are limited to the relief of the toils of her sorrowful
life, in which an ardent heart found no answer to the misery it had
acquired for its portion through sin. {*Note, too, here, that it is
not as with Israel in the wilderness that there was water from the
smitten rock to drink. Here the promise is of a well of water
springing up unto everlasting life in ourselves.}

The stream of grace and its channel

A few words on the character of this woman. I believe the Lord
would show that there is need, that the fields were ready for the
harvest; and that if the wretched self-righteousness of the Jews
rejected Him, the stream of grace would find its channel elsewhere,
God having prepared hearts to hail it with joy and thanksgiving,
because it answered their misery and need -- not the righteous. The
channel of grace was dug by the need and the misery which the grace
itself caused to be felt.

Isolated by sin: alone with the Lord

The life of this woman was shameful; but she was ashamed of it;
at the least her position had isolated her, by separating her from
the crowd that forgets itself in the tumult of social life. And
there is no inward grief like an isolated heart; but Christ and
grace more than meets it. Its isolation more than ceases. He was
more isolated than she. She came alone to the well; she was not
with the other women. Alone, she met with the Lord, by the
wonderful guidance of God who brought her there. The disciples even
must go away to make room for her. They knew nothing of this
grace. They baptised indeed in the name of a Messiah in whom they
believed. It was well. But God was there in grace -- He who would
judge the quick and the dead -- and with Him a sinner in her
sins. What a meeting! And God who had stooped so low as to be
dependent on her for a little water to quench His thirst!

The woman's sense of need: conscience awakened by the searcher of hearts

She had an ardent nature. She had sought for happiness; she had
found misery. She lived in sin, and was weary of life. She was
indeed in the lowest depths of misery. The ardour of her nature
found sin no obstacle. She went on, alas! to the uttermost. The
will, engaged in evil, feeds on sinful desires, and wastes itself
without fruit. Nevertheless her soul was not without a sense of
need. She thought of Jerusalem, she thought of Gerizim. She waited
for the Messiah, who would tell them all things. Did this change
her life? In no wise. Her life was shocking. When the Lord speaks
of spiritual things, in language well suited to awaken the heart,
directing her attention to heavenly things in a way that one would
have thought it impossible to misunderstand, she cannot comprehend
it. The natural man cannot understand the things of the Spirit:
they are spiritually discerned. The novelty of the Lord's address
excited her attention, but did not lead her thoughts beyond her
waterpot, the symbol of her daily toil; although she saw that Jesus
took the place of one greater than Jacob. What was to be done? God
wrought -- He wrought in grace, and in this poor woman. Whatever
the occasion might be as regards herself, it was He who had brought
her thither. But she was unable to comprehend spiritual things
though expressed in the plainest manner; for the Lord spoke of the
water that springs up in the soul unto everlasting life. But as the
human heart is ever revolving in its own circumstances and cares,
her religious need was limited practically to the traditions by
which her life, as regarded its religious thoughts and habits, was
formed, leaving still a void that nothing could fill. What then was
to be done? In what way can this grace act, when the heart does not
understand the spiritual grace which the Lord brings? This is the
second part of the marvellous instruction here. The Lord deals with
her conscience. A word spoken by Him who searches the heart,
searches her conscience: she is in the presence of a man who tells
her all that ever she did. For, her conscience awakened by the
word, and finding itself laid open to the eye of God, her whole
life is before her.

In the presence of God

And who is He that thus searches the heart? She feels that His
word is the word of God. "Thou art a prophet." Intelligence in
divine things comes by the conscience, not by the intellect. The
soul and God are together, if we may so speak, whatever instrument
is employed. She has everything to learn, no doubt; but she is in
the presence of Him who teaches everything. What a step! What a
change! What a new position! This soul, which saw no farther than
her waterpot and felt her toil more than her sin, is there alone
with the Judge of quick and dead -- with God Himself. And in what
manner? She knows not. She only felt that it was Himself in the
power of His own word. But at least He did not despise her, as
others did. Although she was alone, she was alone with Him. He had
spoken to her of life -- of the gift of God; He had told her that
she had only to ask and have. She had understood nothing of His
meaning; but it was not condemnation, it was grace -- grace that
stooped to her, that knew her sin and was not repelled by it, that
asked her for water, that was above Jewish prejudice with regard to
her, as well as the contempt of the humanly righteous -- grace
which did not conceal her sin from her, which made her feel that
God knew it nevertheless, He who knew it was there without alarming
her. Her sin was before God, but not in judgment.

Confidence inspired by the grace of God

Marvellous meeting of a soul with God, which the grace of God
accomplishes by Christ! Not that she reasoned about all these
things; but she was under the effect of their truth without
accounting for it to herself; for the word of God had reached her
conscience, and she was in the presence of Him who had accomplished
it, and He was meek and lowly, and glad to receive a little water
at her hands. Her defilement did not defile Him. She could, in
fact, trust in Him, without knowing why. It is thus that God
acts. Grace inspires confidence -- brings back the soul to God in
peace, before it has any intelligent knowledge, or can explain it
to itself. In this way, full of trust, she begins (it was the
natural consequence) with the questions that filled her own heart;
thus giving the Lord an opportunity of fully explaining the ways of
God in grace. God had so ordered it; for the question was far from
the sentiments which grace afterwards led her to. The Lord replies
according to her condition: salvation was of the Jews. They were
the people of God. Truth was with them, and not with the Samaritans
who worshipped they knew not what. But God put all that aside. It
was now neither at Gerizim nor at Jerusalem, that they should
worship the Father who manifested Himself in the Son. God was a
spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Moreover the
Father sought such worshippers. That is to say, the worship of
their hearts must answer to the nature of God, to the grace of the
Father who had sought them.* Thus true worshippers should worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. Jerusalem and Samaria disappear
entirely -- have no place before such a revelation of the Father in
grace. God no longer hid Himself; He was revealed perfectly in
light. The perfect grace of the Father wrought, in order to make
Him known, by the grace that brought souls to Him. {*It will be
found in John's writings that, when responsibility is spoken of,
God is the word used; when grace to us, the Father and the
Son. When indeed it is goodness (God's character in Christ) towards
the world, then God is spoken of.}

The Lord received: the effect - the heart filled with Christ Himself

Now the woman was not yet brought to Him; but, as we have seen
in the case of the disciples and of John the Baptist, a glorious
revelation of Christ acts upon the soul where it is, and brings the
Person of Jesus into connection with the need already felt. "The
woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh; and when he is
come, he will tell us all things." Small as her intelligence might
be, and unable as she was to understand what Jesus had told her,
His love meets her where she can receive blessing and life; and He
replies, "I, that speak unto thee, am he." The work was done: the
Lord was received. A poor Samaritan sinner receives the Messiah of
Israel, whom the priests and the Pharisees had rejected from among
the people. The moral effect upon the woman is evident. She forgets
her waterpot, her toil, her circumstances. She is engrossed by this
new object that is revealed to her soul -- by Christ; so engrossed
that, without thinking, she becomes a preacher; that is, she
proclaims the Lord in the fulness of her heart and with perfect
simplicity. He had told her all that she had ever done. She does
not think at that moment of what it was. Jesus had told it her; and
the thought of Jesus takes away the bitterness of the sin. The
sense of His goodness removes the guile of heart that seeks to
conceal its sin. In a word, her heart is entirely filled with
Christ Himself. Many believed in Him through her declaration -- "He
has told me all that ever I did"; many more, when they had heard
Him. His own word carried with it a stronger conviction, as more
immediately connected with His Person.

The harvest-fields: the labourers, their wages and the fruit

Meanwhile the disciples come, and -- naturally -- marvel at His
talking with the woman. Their Master, the Messiah -- they
understood this; but the grace of God manifested in the flesh was
still beyond their thoughts. The work of this grace was the meat of
Jesus, and that in the lowliness of obedience as sent of God. He
was taken up with it, and, in the perfect humility of obedience, it
was His joy and His food to do His Father's will, and to finish His
work. And the case of this poor woman had a voice that filled His
heart with deep joy, wounded as it was in this world, because He
was love. If the Jews rejected Him, still the fields in which grace
sought its fruits for the everlasting granary were white already to
harvest. He, therefore, who laboured should not fail of his wages,
nor of the joy of having such fruit unto life
eternal. Nevertheless, even the apostles were but reapers where
others had sown. The poor woman was a proof of this. Christ,
present and revealed, met the need which the testimony of the
prophet had awakened. Thus (while exhibiting a grace which revealed
the love of the Father, of God the Saviour, and coming out,
consequently, from the pale of the Jewish system) He fully
recognised the faithful service of His labourers in former days,
the prophets who, by the Spirit of Christ from the beginning of the
world, had spoken of the Redeem er, of the sufferings of Christ and
the glories that should follow. The sowers and the reapers should
rejoice together in the fruit of their labours.

The divine picture presented in the grace flowing at Sychar's well

But what a picture is all this of the purpose of grace, and of
its mighty and living fulness in the Person of Christ, of the free
gift of God, and of the incapability of the spirit of man to
apprehend it, preoccupied and blinded as he is by present things,
seeing nothing beyond the life of nature, although suffering from
the consequences of his sin! At the same time, we see that it is in
the humiliation, the deep abasement, of the Messiah, of Jesus, that
God Himself is manifested in this grace. It is this that breaks
down the barriers, and gives free course to the torrent of grace
from on high. We see, also, that conscience is the doorway of
understanding in the things of God. We are brought truly into
relationship with God when He searches the heart. This is always
the case. We are then in the truth. Moreover God thus manifests
Himself, and the grace and love of the Father. He seeks
worshippers, and that, according to this double revelation of
Himself, however great His patience may be with those who do not
see farther than the first step of the promises of God. If Jesus is
received, there is a thorough change; the work of conversion is
wrought; there is faith. At the same time what a divine picture of
our Jesus -- humbled, indeed, but even thereby the manifestation of
God in love, the Son of the Father, He who knows the Father, and
accomplishes His work! What a glorious and boundless scene opens
before the soul that is admitted to see and to know Him! The whole
range of grace is open to us here in His work and its divine
extent, in that which regards its application to the individual,
and the personal intelligence we may have respecting it. It is not
precisely pardon, nor redemption, nor the assembly. It is grace
flowing in the Person of Christ; and the conversion of the sinner,
in order that he may enjoy it in himself, and be capable of knowing
God and of worshipping the Father of grace. But how entirely have
we broken out in principle from the narrow limits of Judaism!

In Galilee: the Lord's second miracle and the great truths it set forth

Nevertheless in His personal ministry, the Lord, always
faithful, putting Himself aside in order to glorify His Father by
obeying Him, repairs to the sphere of labour appointed Him of
God. He leaves the Jews, for no prophet is received in his own
country, and goes into Galilee, among the despised of His people,
the poor of the flock, where obedience, grace, and the counsels of
God alike placed Him. In that sense, He did not forsake His
people, perverse as they were. There He works a miracle which
expresses the effect of His grace in connection with the believing
remnant of Israel, feeble as their faith might be. He comes again
to the place where He had turned the water of purification into the
wine of joy ("which cheereth God and man"). By that miracle He had,
in figure, displayed the power which should deliver the people, and
by which, being received, He would establish the fulness of joy in
Israel, creating by that power the good wine of the nuptials of
Israel with their God. Israel rejected it all. The Messiah was not
received. He retired among the poor of the flock in Galilee, after
having shown to Samaria (in passing) the grace of the Father, which
went beyond all promises to, and dealings with, the Jew, and in the
Person and the humiliation of Christ led converted souls to worship
the Father (outside all Jewish system, true or false) in spirit and
in truth; and there, in Galilee, He works a second miracle in the
midst of Israel, where He still labours, according to His Father's
will, that is to say, wherever there is faith; not yet, perhaps, in
His power to raise the dead, but to heal and save the life of that
which was ready to perish. He fulfilled the desire of that faith,
and restored the life of one who was at the point of death. It was
this, in fact, which He was doing in Israel while here below. These
two great truths were set forth -- that which He was going to do
according to the purposes of God the Father, as being rejected; and
that which He was doing at the time for Israel, according to the
faith He found among them.

Outline of chapters 5-21

In the chapters that follow we shall find the rights and the
glory shown forth that attach to His Person; the rejection of His
word and of His work; the sure salvation of the remnant, and of all
His sheep wherever they may be. Afterwards -- acknowledged by God,
as manifested on earth, the Son of God, of David, and of man --
that which He will do when gone away, and the gift of the Holy
Ghost, are unfolded; also the position in which He placed the
disciples before the Father, and with regard to Himself. And then
-- after the history of Gethsemane, the giving of His own life, His
death as giving His life for us -- the whole result, in the ways of
God, until His return, is briefly given in the chapter that closes
the book. We may go more rapidly through the chapters till the
tenth, not as of little importance -- far from it -- but as
containing some great principles which may be pointed out, each in
its place, without requiring much explanation.